My knitting needles have been diverted away from the pullover I was working on and redirected toward some tiny ornaments. There's a lovely blog from the United Kingdom called Little Cotton Rabbits. The blog's author has kindly provided a free pattern for Mini Christmas Stockings and I couldn't resist making a few.



I used bits of yarn that I had on hand, which happened to be baby sport weight. In lieu of a button, I added a jingle bell to each of the four stockings. For fun, I played with combining three colours on one of them.
If you knit, you might enjoy this little project. I'm going to wrap up these ones and give them to a friend who's coming for lunch later this week.




I may have to knit some for myself. Working them up is pleasantly habit forming.

It has been a lovely, quiet day, just perfect for curling up with my current knitting project. The back of this sweater is plain knitting, the front is an all-over cable design and I'm about 75% finished this section.



If you enjoy a good mystery and have yet to read Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, this is the first book. The protagonist is intelligent, observant, patient, compassionate, imperfect, and insightful: "Crime was deeply human, Gamache knew. The cause and the effect. And the only way he knew to catch a criminal was to connect with the human beings involved." (pg. 87)

I had already read A Beautiful Mystery, Penny's second-last book, and was completely captivated by her writing style, plot development, and the well drawn characters. Clearly, I had to go back to the first novel and start making my way through all of them. 

I didn't knit a stitch today. I was in Québec, in the village of Three Pines.


I can always knit tomorrow. In a few days, I'll head to the library for Dead Cold. 

The soft ground is just right for digging and planting. I didn't get all of the bulbs in the earth, but some of the tulips and all of the narcissi are in the soil. There is still much more to do: beds to tidy and edge, roses to wrangle, and more bulbs to plant. This week.



If it's possible to have a few pleasant aches, then that's what I have now; they're the sort that arise from having enjoyed time outdoors while getting yard work done.

Sitting down to write the occasional blog post seems to require more self discipline than I've had of late. I've been puttering around, mentally writing a "To Do" list that needs to be transferred to paper, something tangible, looking at me with an expectant air.

While wondering what I would write about today, I found myself thinking about the "Sunlit Sunday" meme I run in the wintertime. My mind wanders there when I see scenes like these; I never tire of the dancing light, the crisp shadows, and the patterns created by the interplay of the two. If a lace curtain happens to catch a summer breeze and billows out like a delicate gown, so much the better. A little bit of fancy is good for the soul.




Blog posts have been infrequent, but some photos I've shared on the My Little Home and Garden Facebook page, here.








  
Also, of late, I have spent some time attempting to deal with this yarn. One hank, 800 metres of lace weight alpaca. It looks innocent enough, but I've never (in my limited knitting experience) used such fine yarn before.

It had an identification number which I looked it up and found that the colour name was, appropriately, "Lavender". I'll not confess how many times I've attempted to start a project with it. The Ravelry site has plenty of ideas for "easy" patterns. It's a humbling experience, people!







Tomorrow, it will be camomile and plenty of it. Here's why:

Although I've completed a couple of scarves this winter (here and here) some knitting projects have been lingering in baskets, incomplete. For a long time. For a very long time. Don't ask, just think back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth.



One piece of work was a baby sweater, known to me as "Neglected-Knitting-Project-1". It didn't get completed before the birth of one little girl and was put away. This week, I picked it up and sorted out where I'd left off, way back when.


There wasn't too much to do. A second sleeve was finished, then all of the bits and pieces of diamonds and ruffles were ready to be assembled.

While I was away, I decided I needed a little project to pick up now and again and then finish at home. A couple of women were chatting in the yarn section of craft supply store, discussing scarves. I guess I missed the bit about how the ribbon-like yarn gets pulled across its width before you work with it. I had thought you knit it right off the ball; who knew there was another option? (Plenty of you, no doubt, but this yarn was new to me.)









It's not what I had pictured when I purchased the yarn, but I think the ruffles are growing on me!

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